"Don't worry. She'll hold together!"

I have to hand it Kenner and now Hasbro, Star Wars toys are very durable. I'm fortunate that my parents saved all my Star Wars toys from when I was a kid. We're talking the original 1977 figures here. They also saved my old G. I. Joe toys as well. I've passed them on to my son now and have found my old Joe toys have fallen apart. The rubber band that holds the torso to the waist have dry rotted.

The Star Wars figures, on the other hand, are still in great shape! The vehicles are in a bit of worse shape. Part of it must be due to hard play when I was a kid, part of it due to storage & moving over the years. My old Millennium Falcon is missing the rear panel, the cockpit cover, and most of the accessories like the floor panels. My landspeeder has the top rear engine broken off. Still, my son still loves playing with them.

So now to the point of this post. I've found that some Star Wars vehicles are more hardy to kid play (especially toddler play) than others. We haven't bought too many of these, but here are a few observations...

Probably the worst toy for little kids is the Trade Federation Armored Assault Tank (AAT). There are a bunch of pieces that don't attach well. There is a central piece with attachments for the sides of the front curve of the tank, the turret, and side cannons. The main cannon is also loosely attached to the main turret. My three year-old had played with it for only a few minutes when one of the side pieces came off. It easily reattached, but over time all the pieces came off again. Your only option here is super glue the parts, which can work for everything except the turret unless you don't mind it not rotating.

The best vehicle I've found so far is the new V-19 Torrent Starfighter. The two main wings attach very firmly and the center wing is pretty well seated. The two engine attachments are the weakest parts, which I might end up super-gluing. The cannons fire, so I am hesitant to super glue and thus ruin them. The good news is that after two days of play by my son, the cannons are still attached.

The weakest part of any Star Wars vehicle is the entry point for the figure, such as a starfighter canopy. I don't think there is anything you can do about that with super glue since the piece acts as the hinge as well. The Torrent canopy is a little difficult in that when it clicks closed it takes a little dexterity and effort (more than a toddler can manage) to get it open without pulling the whole thing off. Still it is an extremely well put together little toy (to paraphrase Capt. Panaka from TPM). Oh, and it is not actually little. The wingspan is two feet long!